


No Tricks at the Wheel

by st_aurafina



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 08:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3112265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint knows better than to ask questions when Natasha calls for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Tricks at the Wheel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cashay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cashay/gifts).



Clint got the call at three in the afternoon, a few weeks after the whole thing with SHIELD went down. 

"I need an exit," said Natasha. There were explosions in the background. 

Clint did that thing where he flipped the bow with his foot straight into his arms, then realised she wasn't there to see it. "I'll bring the bike," he said. 

Someone shouted something in Russian, very close to the phone. "I'm not alone," said Natasha. She sounded out of breath. "Bring the van."

The pick-up was on some industrial estate out in the middle of nowhere. Two warehouses were slowly caving in as flames crept up the walls. Sparks shot out of a broken window. It was kind of majestic. Clint jumped when Natasha thumped on the side of the van. 

She wouldn't let him help haul the guy into the van, but she did let him drive, so Clint didn't ask any questions. Lack of curiosity didn't last long: traffic was slow through the Turnpike, and Clint angled the mirror so he could surreptitiously check out the dude huddled in the back. Natasha had covered him with a blanket, but the outline of a rifle strapped to his back was clear enough if you knew what to look for. 

"So, who is this guy again?" Clint snuck the van around a slow-moving minibus of grandmothers. One of them dropped her knitting to flip him the bird, and he reached for the window control so he could return the gesture. 

Natasha slapped the back of his head, and he put both hands back on the wheel. 

She stood braced behind the driver's seat, with a clear view of traffic ahead and behind. She watched the guy a lot, too. "He's a friend," she said eventually. "What you'd do for me, do for him." 

"Well, okay," said Clint. "But if only you'd let me know, I would have packed my sexy underwear." 

It was worth it for Tash's suppressed snort of laughter. Clint had missed the whole SHIELD debacle, but it looked like laughs had been few and far between. 

\---

The guy had an honest-to-god metal arm. 

"So, who is this guy again?" Clint asked, as they unpacked at the safehouse. The guy watched Clint the whole time, from behind lank brown hair that hung past his chin. 

Natasha shrugged a bag onto her shoulder. "We worked together. Before." 

"Huh," said Clint. "Before" encapsulated a lot of things, most of which was not good, for Natasha or for anyone else involved. 

He hefted his bow and nodded towards the guy. "Hey, wanna come check the perimeter? Probably feel better if you see it with your own eyes." 

The guy looked once to Natasha for confirmation, and at her nod, he pushed himself upright and pulled a handgun, keeping it low. 

Clint walked the perimeter, cleared the rooms and checked the locks, with a running patter of nonsense that would have earned him another smack across the head from Natasha, but drew only puzzled glances from the guy. 

"Hey," Clint said, as they both walked into the kitchen. "Do you have a name, or something?" 

The guy and Natasha exchanged one of those long gazes, the kind of unspoken conversation that probably involved a million different code names. 

"James?" she said, and the guy nodded in agreement. 

"James," he said, and though Clint expected him to have an accent, he sounded pretty regular. 

\---

James might have been the name they agreed on, but in the middle of the night, Natasha used some Russian diminutive when she wrapped her arms around him. 

Clint was ready for the nightmares; it was clear from the way James looked at the pizza box like he wasn't sure if that was really food that there hadn't been a lot of self-determination or takeout in his life up till now. 

"Is he coming off anything? We gonna need a medic?" he asked Natasha, while James was in the shower and they gathered bed linen. She'd been up to the eyeballs on state-sanctioned stimulants when she'd come in, and had spent the first week detoxing. 

She shrugged, and Clint gave her a wry smile. All the stuff they'd been through together, and she'd never looked as haunted as she did tonight. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. 

"S'okay," he said. "We'll get him through." 

They just made up the one bed – jumpy people sleep better when they know where everyone in the house is at any given moment – and Clint took first watch, rocked back in his chair against the door, his bow across his lap. 

James slept about as much as Clint would have expected, in that tug-of-war between constant alertness and complete exhaustion. In the coldest part of the night, he shouted out in Russian, eyes open but not awake, a knife suddenly in his hand. Clint sat very still and let Natasha speak to him, watched him trying to make sense of his surroundings, saw his gaze find an unfamiliar face. Clint's body recognised the projectile before the knife had left James' hand, and the hilt slapped into Clint's palm with comfortable ease. 

James' shoulders bunched, ready to follow up the attack, but Clint flipped the knife, passed it back to him hilt-first. "Here you go, buddy," he said. "You need this more than I do." 

James took it, vanished it away to wherever he had it stashed, and nodded his thanks. This time, he got a good couple of hours sleep, and only woke when it was time to change shifts. He was going to let Tash sleep through, since she'd probably had a much worse day than him, with whatever she'd done to get this guy safe, but she opened her eyes and watched him over the top of James' head on her chest. Clint wished he could tell her how much it meant that she'd asked for his help on this. Or that he thought she was beautiful, even with shadows under her eyes and that weird crimp in her hair she got sometimes. Or that he would promise to keep this James guy safe because he could see how important he was to her. 

They must have had one of those long gaze type things, he thought, because Natasha tugged back the blanket on the other side of James' body. 

"Come on," she said, and nudged James awake gently. 

James woke more easily, took in the situation, and bunched up closer to Natasha's body to make room. Clint propped his bow by the side of the bed and sat on the edge to unlace his boots, then slipped his legs under the cover. When James was sandwiched between the two of him, he gave a heavy sigh and closed his eyes again. Clint wriggled around until he could get his arm under a pillow and his body pressed against James' back, and closed his eyes. Natasha found his fingers under the pillow and interlaced her own, and joined together like that, he drifted off to sleep.


End file.
